Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #198: Steven Blocker-Emporia State University

Transcript

#198: Steven Blocker-Emporia State University · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field coach, the ones that point
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  people most every season. He's the voice of reason.
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  Speaking, the growth gotta prep for you carry the load.
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  Talk to the stove. For those of us, stay on the go
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  pop, the handle, staying in the zone.
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  What you packing for the role is more than one way to go taking
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  those tests. And you told it ain't practice
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  it before it became clear. You can't happen to you.
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  Listen with both ears, can't Mentor, without a mentor, kids
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  of experience, you can reinvent those kids.
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  Every plans got to stand and deliver in the price sacrifice,
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  can you give up Hugh its choice and to fight not to win or lose?
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  It's not a boy, but if I see, y'all can make more movies, not
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  about how to All about why you don't know what you're you know
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  who you are inside. Six, many ways to die.
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  The work ain't done. So we learn from the experts to.
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  Y'all got to put in the legwork Gil athletic shoes Network.
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  It's all about Connections put together for the profession to
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  every track coach could be blessed.
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  Alright, welcome back here to the Galapagos connections,
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  podcast, the podcast that uplifts and honors coaches from
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  around the world. We focus here domestically, of
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  course, here in the US, but it's quite amazing.
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  When I look at the stats listeners from Greece and Italy
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  in the UK and Canada Mexico. Of course, it's just it's quite
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  humbling. So for all of our International
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  listeners, so blessed that you would be here and really get to
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  dive into some of the amazing coaches that we have here in the
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  US. And speaking of that, let's get
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  right into it. I'm really pumped for this one
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  known him for a while but don't know him which is exciting.
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  I guess we get to learn together here.
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  Help me. Welcome the head coach of
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  Emporia State and beautiful Kansas which I do know we're
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  going to talk about Kansas. Trust me.
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  I know some cans of stuff help me.
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  Welcome the wise, the wonderful mr.
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  Steve blocker Steve. How are you sir?
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  I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.
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  How is it, you know, when we're when you're listening it's March
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  but we're recording this in February and I did I call it, my
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  one, my one year, jail time I did in Kansas not Far from the
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  for you. How is it weather-wise right now
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  in beautiful Kansas, it's actually pretty nice the next
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  three days. I think look pretty good.
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  I think the high on I think Wednesday gets up to near 70 and
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  so today I think it's in the 60s so I walked in this morning and
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  felt great but I did one year and Chanute Kansas was the head
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  coach of Neosho, County Community College.
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  Yes and I love can't. Kansas is a great state and
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  there's some amazing places Emporia and Wichita Area in
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  Kansas City. And there's a lot of Towns in
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  between but you know, Chanute is a very small.
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  I don't give a damn what smaller than a town?
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  It's not a city. It's not a shit maybe.
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  Yeah, maybe Village, I don't know.
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  It's so so small. In the weather we must have one
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  of the worst Winters was the there for the 2001 season.
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  So the winner going into 2001 was just, it was unbearable.
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  I was great. It was so bad.
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  I chose to move to Indiana. That was a better weather.
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  But I didn't want to get decision but I did enjoy my to
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  my location because you know right there in that Southeast.
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  We're close to Emporia and Wichita we're close to Joplin.
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  Of course Kansas City is just a little hike up.
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  North it was a great great time there in Kansas.
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  Yeah, that's awesome. Well, let's learn about your
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  kids, I have no idea if you're from Kansas.
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  What Steve where does you know at some point assuming that you
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  were an athlete coaching in your mind?
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  It went from something that was always done to you.
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  Stephen go run this goal. If this Etc to oh wait a minute,
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  like maybe maybe I could be a try.
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  Like this could be a career for me.
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  Possibly, where does coaching begin for you?
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  Oh gosh. Well, that is a good question.
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  I mean I think as far as far as I can remember back, you know to
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  of course childhood, you know, I just remember Sports and so I
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  just, you know, I remember, you know playing football I guess
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  was kind of the first first sport you know as big 85 Bears
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  fan and also getting into football.
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  I was right around that age. I was about 56 years old during
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  that era and so I think that Assured me into sports and then
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  I had a friend and I started running track to get faster for
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  football and a good buddy of mine who I can give the credit
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  to or I guess I could blame, I don't know.
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  You know, he my dad was a marine and so we moved around a little
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  bit. So my freshman year, I did long
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  jump and triple jump out in High School, California and then we
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  got stationed in Yuma, Arizona. And a friend of mine that I
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  played wide receiver with said, hey, you know, you got to come
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  run hurdles and I thought well I you know that I don't want to do
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  that, you know, but I did, you know, just because my buddy
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  talked me into it I guess. And so had a great coach.
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  He ran track at Wisconsin, the cross and he was a young High
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  School coach. And so from that moment on I
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  kind of thought, hey, Sports would be a part of my life and
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  slowly but surely, you know, track kind of overtook football
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  as my first love I guess. And so, and then just kind of,
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  you know, just a sended through time, you know, I guess it
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  really wasn't until I remember my fifth year of eligibility in
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  Northern Iowa. My last my last season, you
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  know, I thought I was going to be a strength coach.
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  That was what I really wanted to do and had some good influences
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  there at you. And I and but then I think, you
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  know, that, that last year, I just remember thinking boy, I
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  really like track. You know, I think I want to want
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  to stick with this. Said, so from that moment on it
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  was I wanted to be a Collegiate track and field coach.
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  So no first of all, shout out to that friend as a huge fan of the
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  hurdles. I love that they're like, you
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  should try the hurdles, I love how we have kind of alternate
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  views. You were like, I don't know, I
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  kind of like running on the street and just jumping right
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  eye when in hurdles were introduced to me.
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  So I was a kind of a half mile or Miler and our practices were
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  so bad. And what I mean by that is
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  literally every day, we did our Events that that was every day.
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  I mean, this was, you know, this is a few years before.
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  Use, this is before YouTube and books and videos and caring,
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  where I wasn't, right? Little little town of Alabama.
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  So I saw the hurdlers and all they did was the 110 hurdles and
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  300 hurdles, and they were done for the day and I was like well,
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  I like that sounds a lot better than doing the four by eight to
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  eight of Mi the form of four and typically the two mile every.
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  Yeah, every day. So I love this friend.
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  Shout out to do you remember his name?
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  His name was Jeff Weiss. Nice, Jeff.
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  I don't know if you're listening man.
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  But as again as a big fan of the hurdles, I always let people
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  that recruit people into the hurdles that so I love that what
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  tell me about so your dad was a marine, quite interesting.
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  So I knew California was going to come up Big Marine base out
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  there. Of course, what did you said?
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  You had a coach from University of those wisconsin-la Crosse.
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  That was in Yuma, Arizona. I love that.
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  You had someone from the Midwest, come all the way out
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  there. First of all, we love shouting
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  out coaches names. Do you remember his name?
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  He's already time. Span Tom's been.
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  So what was it about his style that you kind of your face?
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  Kind of lit up a little bit when you talked about him.
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  Yeah, he was, I mean, so so, yeah.
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  My teammate. Jeff, that talked me into
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  running hurdles and I'll I remember my first memory after
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  that was. I would go to practice and Yuma
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  and it was hot and we had a dirt track and oh, wow, I hated
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  practice, you know. I went from long jump triple
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  jump. In Southern California to, you
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  know, Yuma Arizona and Mark desert and I'm just running all
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  these track workouts. All of a sudden I'm thinking
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  this is misery but but Tom, you know, he was probably, oh,
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  golly, he was maybe maybe late 20s, you know, when he was
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  coaching and, you know, he would run with us and he had a
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  teammate that co-star sprinters name was Brad, Chamberlain and
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  they would just jump in there and run with us.
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  Us and Tom was a foreigner hurdler.
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  And so I think his youth, you know, and the fact that they
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  would jump in and run and they made it, they made it fun.
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  You know, and Tom was, I think his personality just really
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  clicked with me, you know, he was kind of a sarcastic guy, you
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  know, so you just you couldn't, you have, you could laugh at
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  yourself, so to speak because we were all learning and he just
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  made it really fun, and he was just a heck of a coach and for
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  some reason, you know, I think I go back and look at my Race
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  ever. I fell and we're at a meet in
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  Lake Havasu. And, you know, I just remember,
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  hearing the crowd kind of give that that, oh, you know, kind of
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  thing and got back up and finished and, you know, Fast
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  Forward by the end of that year. I qualified for the state meet
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  and, and that was just Tom, you know, he was a great coach and
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  so he made it fun and I went from hating it to to love again,
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  just oh, yeah, you know, I love that story because what you just
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  did there is encapsulate The power of the positivity of a
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  coach, the positive impact. The coach makes on young kids
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  because both of y'all especially after the first fall, not that
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  your first rate, it's very rare, right?
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  When the first race goes perfect, you're like, oh man, I
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  ran my first race and Iran 1420. It's like every other every
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  other girls will screw you, man, because most of us right now,
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  Lori. So both of y'all, the coach and
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  athlete could have been like yeah.
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  You know what, maybe we do. Stick to long jumping like
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  that's okay. You didn't fall over there, so
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  maybe we just go there. But also that Tom had to like,
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  every situations different, right?
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  How you coach high school at Yuma in the 90s would be
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  different than how someone in here in Champaign.
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  Coaches track in the 2020s. You mentioned being on a dirt
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  track. It's a desert already.
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  So it's friggin hot. Yeah, he at least realize like,
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  okay, well, these kids are coming out to work their tails
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  off for me. I better make it fun like there
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  better be something enjoyable at the end of the day for these
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  guys or they can go do something else.
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  Baseball. All video games, whatever, you
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  know. So I love that he realized that
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  and then actually implemented that so much that you actually
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  qualified for State, man. That energy.
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  I mean did you when you when you were there was the Regionals or
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  whatever, how they did it back then, for Arizona, when you
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  realize that you had qualified for State like did the the
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  memory of falling erase or did it like kind of put it all in
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  perspective of like, oh my God, I could barely finished a race
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  the first time and now here I am going to the state meet.
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  Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, Truthfully.
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  I, it's hard to remember. I just, I remember the only
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  thought that comes to mind was, you know, we were at a random
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  kind of a bigger Invitational meet and I 3-step the whole race
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  for the first time and that was a few meets into it and I just
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  felt like from that moment on it was like, you know, that
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  learning curve. I must have been taken advantage
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  of and then as we get towards the end of the season, I just
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  remember thinking Every time I do well I just I keep going
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  again so then you know, there's less and less of us, you know?
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  And so it was I think we had we're in the Desert Valley
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  region in Arizona and so I would we would race on like a
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  Wednesday. I think it was and we had kind
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  of the preliminary rounds and then if you if you placed so
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  high, I think, you know, you would advance to the final which
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  was either Friday or Saturday and then if you were top three,
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  I think then you would move on to the state championship.
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  And so I just remember moving on and I really was I felt like I
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  was clueless It's like I was just racist just racing.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so yeah, that was, that's my
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  only memory and then everyone was kind of like, you know.
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  Wow, you're going to the state championship and I thought, well
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  doesn't, don't we all do that? Or I don't know.
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  Also and it had Adam said in I guess.
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  Yeah, that's actually kind of precious like, you know, some
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  people that it's their only other eyes on the prize, not the
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  only thing that matters and they fall short in their identity
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  falls short. You, they put their whole
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  identity, you were just like, all right, Coach Line me up.
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  I guess I better ring. Yeah I guess it's kind of that
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  football mentality. You go out there and you run to
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  win and then you just just you know you advance know and that's
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  really all I remember. Next thing I knew I was running
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  a track meet at Arizona State and I thought, oh, this is
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  pretty big. That's cool.
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  I did not make the final though. I do remember that.
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  Okay, that's good. So you gonna give me some
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  Cinderella Story Land or the exact opposite.
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  You got to stay in you fell again.
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  Like I'll son of a no I didn't fall.
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  Good good. You remember, trying some to
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  implement some drill and I saw another guy doing and I'll never
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  forget you slicing the back of my lead leg on this hurdle and
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  of course, I had to play it off as if you know, nothing
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  happened. And I looked down, you know, I
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  don't know. However, long later and I mean,
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  it was probably a good, you know, 6-inch just just a scrape
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  purple, you know. It wasn't like I was
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  hemorrhaging or anything, but I played it off and I remember
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  thinking no big deal. I'm fine.
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  And it made it hurt so bad, it's so, but will take us back.
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  You mentioned, you brought up the fact the first time you
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  three steps and you know, the hurdles is a little different
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  special. The 110 hurdles compared to a
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  lot of other events I can think of off the top of my head that,
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  you know, we're always striving to get to a similar stripe
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  pattern, right 82. The first three in between 10
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  off or what, not depend on your ability etcetera, but we usually
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  start with five. Stepping or maybe we for step if
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  we Can switch. But the first time you
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  three-step did feels like flying, it's a little different.
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  You get more air time so it just feels different.
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  Can you remember like the first time you ran the first the whole
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  110? Everything like was it like like
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  did you feel slow? Like when you finish did you
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  like okay? Three step but that felt slower
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  than some of my other races. You know, I still, I swear, I
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  can, I can remember the meat and I remember the morning, I really
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  wish I could remember where we were.
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  I mean, I feel as if it was yesterday.
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  Remember, it was a preliminary, you know, it was kind of a big
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  me, but we ran the prelims, you know, kind of morning time.
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  Maybe, you know, I don't know, 11 a.m. or something and I just
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  remember it was quiet. And you know, I remember taking
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  each hurdle and I got to the finish and it just felt right.
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  And I thought, oh, something with good and then and Tom, you
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  know, we would call him spending his last name he comes up and
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  kind of high fives me and I'm thinking okay that that work.
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  Something was good, you know and And I remember it feeling fast
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  and like you described it really, really pretty perfectly.
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  It felt like flying, it felt really effortless and, you know,
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  from that moment on it just I've just never, I don't remember,
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  you know, I kind of a never look back type of mentality, I guess.
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  And man, I really wish I could remember where it was.
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  I can see the other teams, jerseys and everything.
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  But yeah, just went, it just went really well and I obviously
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  he was excited and so that got me I did so.
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  Well, let's keep moving on because I will not work.
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  All you the story. So I was a hurdler.
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  I was a really terrible hurdler. I still remember the first time
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  I five steps all the way through.
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  I had to go from Seven down to five.
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  That's very special. Not many people.
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  And how many people go from 725? It usually by starts off with
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  five, I had to really work to do five.
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  I think the first time I did hurdles I'm not kidding.
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  I think I did a 20 stepper. I mean I was just I do.
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  Yeah, I'll set it all up for that next.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  Knowing that your dad was a marine.
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  He already talked about a couple places you moved as someone who
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  has some experience, being a military family, you probably
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  moved or can assume maybe you've moved a lot because I was going
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  to ask how in the world. Do you get out to Northern Iowa?
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  But it might have been just been in your blood as far as like,
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  you know, moving and stuff like that.
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  But tell me, why did you choose Northern Iowa?
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  A great scummy, talk about another amazing program that it
• 16:38
  feels a little bit like a slam. If I say they overachieve, and I
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  don't mean that in any bad way, I just know They do a really,
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  really good job there. How did you get to Northern
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  Iowa? And what major were you looking
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  at when you first got there? Yeah, great question.
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  You know. So really, you know, it's like,
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  hey, I guess give give credits. I thank God.
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  You know, I joke that it was the best decision I ever made and
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  looking back. It was as if I, you know, you
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  know, not to sound melodramatic or poetic.
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  But it was as if something or someone was kind of just guiding
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  me there. Yeah, looking back.
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  You know, my my dad's from Iowa originally.
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  Okay, so we would visit family in Davenport quite a bit, you
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  know, the holidays and what not. And we were in Arizona and I
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  graduated high school in May and my dad retired from the Marines,
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  like two weeks later and, you know, so we had intentions if I
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  remember, you know, our family. We were, I was going to run at a
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  Juco up in Phoenix area, but at least a community college a lot
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  included me. Lots of grades.
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  You goes there and Arizona. One time we dropped a lot of But
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  that was a hotbed for junior college track and field.
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  Yeah, right. And I wish I could remember the
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  coach's name. I think I thought he was still
• 17:52
  there, but he was just a great coach and I really wanted to go
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  there. But honestly, I was just too
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  chicken to leave home. And with my dad, trying to find
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  work, you know, in that region and Arizona, maybe southern
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  California, where my mom's side is from a lot of things are just
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  up in the air and so they decided it kind of last minute,
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  you know, my dad's side from Um, Iowa, why don't we try Iowa?
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  So they moved to Davenport and I just kind of followed suit.
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  I was like I said, really just kind of too chicken to leave
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  home and go out on my own. So, I did my first two years at
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  st. Ambrose University in Davenport
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  Iowa. Your Abby.
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  I had yes. Fighting Vineyard good.
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  Oh man. That's so awesome.
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  Yeah. Yeah and it was great.
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  I had a I had a great time there, a great experience there.
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  And I had a great coach can see Ryan.
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  Sadler was the coach of the time and really had a lot of fun.
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  But I think at the time there was just something, you know, I
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  joke with my student athletes that, you know academics.
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  I never, I never did poorly but you know, track was my first
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  love and that was what I really wanted to push as hard as I
• 19:03
  possibly could and I kind of had some random occurrences with
• 19:08
  with people at Northern Iowa. Is that attractive Fact, one of
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  my teammates at st. Ambrose Rose was high school
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  teammates with pole vaulter at the Time.
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  Jake Paul. I yeah you might know.
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  Jake course. Yeah.
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  We're at a meet at Iowa and my say I'm running for st.
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  Ambrose and my teammate at Ambrose introduced me to Jake
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  and that was my first kind of first person I've met at
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  Northern. Iowa had a cousin that just she
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  just attended Northern Iowa and I got online one day and I
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  thought you know hey I think I want to try to run here.
• 19:42
  I think this would be a good For me, you know, right around that
• 19:46
  same time. My dad actually took a position
• 19:49
  back on the west coast who my parents were then going to move
• 19:51
  from Iowa back to California. So I decided to stay.
• 19:55
  So at that time I kind of grown, I guess a little and yeah let's
• 19:58
  say a year ago, your mind you would have gone to California,
• 20:02
  right, right. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:04
  And, and, and so, so I went up to the 10 Northern Iowa kind of
• 20:07
  on a whim and and really just kind of thank god.
• 20:11
  It worked out, I wanted to Major Her in as major, in physical
• 20:15
  education at time and going from an NAIA to an NCAA.
• 20:18
  They're telling me you need progress towards degree to be
• 20:21
  eligible and they said well lucky for you.
• 20:23
  We have this new, it's called physical education, non-teaching
• 20:27
  so a nice way to insult you. Again, you know, it's Health and
• 20:31
  Human Performance here at Emporia State or exercise
• 20:34
  science. But in 2000, I guess that was
• 20:37
  kind of new. And I said, I have no intentions
• 20:41
  of being a physical education teacher.
• 20:43
  So that's perfect for me. Great, feel like you wrote this
• 20:47
  for me, perfect, right? I was like, this is, this is a
• 20:49
  miracle, you know. So one of those little miracle
• 20:51
  stops along the way and I thought, no, that's perfect.
• 20:55
  I really don't. You know, I don't want to be a
• 20:57
  PE teacher. I wanted to be a strength coach.
• 20:59
  And so I thought exercise science with the coaching minor
• 21:02
  would be perfect. And so I went with that and you
• 21:06
  know, thank God, it really all just worked out.
• 21:08
  Now, let's explore this because I think there's some value here
• 21:12
  for Or beginning coaches or coat?
• 21:16
  Yeah, probably more for beginning, coaches here.
• 21:18
  But you just Express kind of a big.
• 21:22
  I don't break through, might not be the right word here, but a
• 21:25
  big change in you, you would mention that, you know, I wasn't
• 21:29
  going to leave where my family was for school.
• 21:31
  Like, you know, we were going to stay in Arizona.
• 21:33
  So I was going to go to Mesa. Oh, we're moving to Iowa
• 21:36
  Davenport. Ok, then I'm gonna go to st.
• 21:37
  Ambrose, and now something happens in this two years of
• 21:42
  college this fall. A parents move and like I said,
• 21:45
  I would have 100% if I just said hey well what a Stevens Next
• 21:49
  Step. Well he's going to California
• 21:50
  then that's just that's his room.
• 21:52
  All you know what do you think changed and why?
• 21:57
  You know, we see a lot of I don't use the word a lot, we see
• 22:01
  athletes who don't want to go to school, six hours away, 16 hours
• 22:06
  away because they wanted the comfort of home and that's not
• 22:10
  judgment. There may be some people need
• 22:12
  that and that is the right place for them.
• 22:15
  Some people job-wise don't want to move to another state and
• 22:19
  other region, etc, for many, many reasons, again, I think a
• 22:24
  lot of that does have to be with comfort.
• 22:25
  You do you know where you are, and who you're with?
• 22:28
  And those kind of things, striking out on your own?
• 22:30
  Can definitely be scary. You know, for someone who moved
• 22:33
  a lot, you had to be the new kid in school a lot.
• 22:37
  So, you know, that's a, that's a different person and personality
• 22:40
  that can succeed in that but what For you.
• 22:43
  What was it about college that when your parents were going to
• 22:47
  California? They probably also were like, oh
• 22:49
  well, Stevens coming with us. We'd better start looking for a
• 22:51
  school and you're like, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to
• 22:53
  Northern Iowa. I'm okay here.
• 22:54
  I've kind of found my thing. You know who I am?
• 22:57
  Maybe we can you expand on that at all?
• 23:00
  Well, that's a, that's a, that's a great question, you know?
• 23:02
  I mean, I think, looking back, you know, at that time and
• 23:07
  knowing I guess what, I know now, you know, really just kind
• 23:10
  of came down to that, that old cliche of, you know, you know,
• 23:14
  focus on focusing on one thing whatever your priority is.
• 23:17
  And at that time, you know, my priority was track and field.
• 23:22
  You know? Things were going well at st.
• 23:24
  Ambrose, you know, I I've done, you know.
• 23:26
  Okay, I guess you could say in the one tens and 400 hurdles and
• 23:30
  so I felt like I just kind of had hit a point where I thought,
• 23:35
  you know, hey, I have so much opportunity here to push myself
• 23:38
  to run as fast as possible. And I want to take that
• 23:41
  opportunity, you know, Whatever that may be.
• 23:44
  And so I wish I could say, you know, and I don't know, maybe
• 23:47
  the student-athletes. Maybe.
• 23:49
  I don't know if anyone hears this, you know, academics were
• 23:51
  not my priority. I kind of figured I would find a
• 23:55
  major. I would make it work.
• 23:58
  I would graduate you know, but I felt like I needed to find the
• 24:02
  right environment, you know, to run to run fast.
• 24:06
  And so, you know, at the time you know, the internet is this
• 24:09
  is probably 2000, you know, was still kind of in its infancy.
• 24:13
  See. And so, I just remember looking
• 24:15
  at some results and thinking, hey, this would probably be a
• 24:18
  good fit for me. I had looked at Wisconsin, the
• 24:21
  cross because of my high school coach and so I think I just kind
• 24:24
  of grew into that point and you touched on them, you know.
• 24:30
  Yeah, I moved around a little bit.
• 24:31
  So at that time, I think maybe moving didn't really have much
• 24:34
  of a wasn't too much of a variable of a deterrent, you
• 24:38
  know? I was gonna wonder if being in
• 24:42
  college in you That sometimes is the first time a lot of us meet
• 24:45
  people from other places, right? We meet the sometimes.
• 24:48
  That's the first time we meet an international student.
• 24:50
  We meet people from California. Maine, North Dakota Etc.
• 24:54
  But being a military kid, you had to have when you were in
• 25:00
  California, you had to meet people who were transferred
• 25:02
  there from Maryland and Alabama, I mean so you it wasn't like the
• 25:06
  first time you're meeting people from outside of your region.
• 25:10
  Yeah, I don't know. That's just interesting to me
• 25:11
  about about that about what Why why now, why after two years of
• 25:15
  college like okay. Yeah, this is going to sound
• 25:18
  terrible. Steve, the little birds out of
• 25:20
  the nest. I can stay, it's okay.
• 25:24
  And they go far. By the way, they go to
• 25:25
  California, they don't go to the next thing over it.
• 25:28
  Well, here's the thing, they go, buddy.
• 25:29
  Go time zones for you. I know I look back at that and I
• 25:32
  think, you know, I just I was scared to death, you know, I
• 25:35
  guess. Yeah.
• 25:36
  I think I had a good childhood, you know, still have a good
• 25:38
  relationship with my folks, you know, so I don't know.
• 25:42
  I look Back, I really don't know what it was, some sort of, you
• 25:46
  know, a failure to launch, to some degree, you know, some
• 25:48
  student athletes that, you know, there, they can't get out fast
• 25:50
  enough. You know that works for them,
• 25:53
  you know, I was just more of a cautious learner I guess you
• 25:55
  could say and but you're right once you know, we joke around
• 25:59
  that. Once my parents left Iowa and I
• 26:01
  stayed it was, you know, 1,800 miles, whatever it is apart and
• 26:06
  months without seeing them, but it's worked out.
• 26:11
  Well, tell us about there's time at Northern Iowa.
• 26:13
  You know obviously amazing athletes have come through there
• 26:16
  but also quite a few amazing coaches, you know Bucky and
• 26:19
  Travis come to mind immediately steel.
• 26:22
  I mean just as so many great coaches and people have been
• 26:25
  there as you're going through those last couple years of your
• 26:30
  eligibility it was still eyes on the prize of being a shrink and
• 26:34
  conditioning coach. Yeah.
• 26:36
  You know really you know probably my first you know, you
• 26:39
  mentioned I like how you put eyes on the prize, you know my
• 26:42
  prize was really To track, you know, kind of all along.
• 26:46
  But I, yeah, I thought academically I'd be a strength
• 26:48
  coach, you know, that was my inkling.
• 26:52
  I guess you could say at the time and so I was taking
• 26:54
  courses, you know, in in sports science or and coaching.
• 26:59
  And then of course, I get to Northern Iowa and there are
• 27:02
  tryouts you know, and so I'm thinking, well, how hard can it
• 27:06
  be? You know, I kind of had, you
• 27:10
  know, a relationship with Jake Paul Li and actually The first
• 27:13
  guy that I met, I went into monkeys office one day after I'd
• 27:16
  already registered for classes and everything.
• 27:17
  You know, I'm in the registration process and finding
• 27:20
  an apartment and everything. And Travis is sitting in there.
• 27:23
  And so the first official guy that I met that was Travis and
• 27:28
  so so met him and you know, kind of the rumors start to get going
• 27:33
  that. Hey, you know, we've got to make
• 27:35
  some Cuts this year and I thought you're kidding, you
• 27:39
  know? And I know you kind of take this
• 27:41
  for granted and track there's really no.
• 27:43
  Cuts, you know. Well there were a lot of cuts
• 27:46
  this particular year and I thought this is a nightmare, you
• 27:51
  know, like if I don't make this team and I remember there was a
• 27:54
  list that came out and it had kind of four categories like you
• 27:58
  know, practice gear, locker room access and weight room access
• 28:01
  and maybe one other thing and you know you either did or
• 28:05
  didn't have check marks next to your name.
• 28:07
  Well, whatever is next to my name, I didn't get access to
• 28:09
  anything. It's so I'm like, if I show up
• 28:13
  to practice and that's all I can do and then I'd have to go back
• 28:16
  during the open rec hours to lift weights, and, you know, so
• 28:21
  that was what I would I would do and it was cool because there
• 28:24
  was a strength coach who was a ga at the time and he would
• 28:27
  always be in the office and I would ask him what would attract
• 28:30
  do today? And so finally he's like, hey
• 28:32
  I'm just going to post it, you know, I'm just going to post it
• 28:34
  for you and I was like, hey thanks to him.
• 28:36
  So like so he posted it. With a small blip here.
• 28:46
  We're going to get Stephen to pick this back up from posting
• 28:49
  the workout from the DEA. You blipped out there, we start
• 28:53
  back with the coach was posted in the workout.
• 28:57
  Okay, yeah. So so posts to work out and I
• 29:00
  would do that, you know, whatever time 7:00 7:00 at
• 29:03
  night. I guess it would be.
• 29:04
  And when I after I'd graduated buck and case shared that,
• 29:12
  they're like, yeah man, you you were cut from the team.
• 29:15
  At one point and I thought well that's interesting and I never
• 29:19
  knew that. And and so really what happened
• 29:24
  was and at first I thought they were joking.
• 29:27
  Yeah. Right whatever.
• 29:28
  You know and I thought and they're like, no really?
• 29:32
  And I thought what my name was on that list that day.
• 29:35
  You know. And really what happened was I
• 29:39
  had two teammates at the time that said, hey we're going to go
• 29:41
  do hurdle drills at, you know, 2230 and practice started at
• 29:46
  3:30 and I thought. Okay, you know, this is New
• 29:51
  Territory for me, like you go early and and I remember walking
• 29:55
  down from my girlfriend at the time, her dorm room and I'm
• 29:58
  walking down to the outdoor track and I didn't see anybody
• 30:01
  there and I almost turned around and said, forget it, you know
• 30:05
  these guys obviously didn't go or something.
• 30:09
  But something, you know, just another miracle moment.
• 30:11
  Pushed me down there, and I go down there and I start hurdling
• 30:13
  and I'll never forget, Doug case was helping Travis in The discus
• 30:18
  and I remember he gave me a cue and my Hurley so we start
• 30:21
  drilling and and it just worked, you know, he gave me this one q
• 30:26
  and it really worked and unbeknownst to me at the time.
• 30:30
  They told me this years after the fact that that yeah, it was
• 30:34
  cut but I came down one day and I did hurdle drills and I guess
• 30:38
  case. I was like yeah I mean I called
• 30:40
  I called up to the office and said, take this dude off the
• 30:42
  list. He's a pretty good hurdler.
• 30:45
  And so my name was written in and and that's how I ended up
• 30:49
  making the team. So I almost didn't go.
• 30:52
  Wow you know and the fort unfortunately the two guys that
• 30:55
  invited me to do hurdle. Jewels actually end up getting
• 30:57
  cut and I made the team. Thanks to them dude.
• 31:03
  So it was it was naughty looking back.
• 31:07
  So I mean Steve that on top of some of these other stories so
• 31:11
  far and we're still an undergraduate.
• 31:13
  The right, right? I mean it is you kind of
• 31:16
  describe it. It's almost like there was a
• 31:18
  hand on your back going. Hey, it's time for you to go
• 31:19
  over here. Hey, it's time for go here.
• 31:22
  Even to down to the point of like, hey, it's time to go go do
• 31:24
  some hurdles drills, right? That is amazing.
• 31:28
  And that was, that was the first time that we had done any of
• 31:30
  those drills. You know, all fall.
• 31:32
  I mean, had they have those guys not invited me, you know?
• 31:35
  I think everything in my life, probably would have been
• 31:37
  different. Yeah.
• 31:39
  Yeah, absolutely. Wow, that's quite amazing.
• 31:43
  Oh my goodness! I'm sorry.
• 31:47
  I can't wait to see those guys again and save it.
• 31:50
  So I thought you, okay, Steve. What if they first told me we're
• 31:54
  I was helping coach after I graduated and we're eating
• 31:56
  dinner and it was kind of one of those moments where you felt
• 31:59
  like you might have realized how close you came to like death was
• 32:03
  right. You know and your kind of laugh
• 32:05
  it off at first and then you then you pause and you think
• 32:08
  Wait, really seriously? And they're like, no, you were,
• 32:12
  you were cutting me to write your name in, I thought, wow,
• 32:16
  okay, everything would have been different for me that day.
• 32:21
  And yeah, so that is quite amazing.
• 32:25
  It is one of these. You typically we talk about like
• 32:27
  decisions that you have to make that seem, you know, now that we
• 32:30
  have perspective, we have you know, 20/20 hindsight here.
• 32:33
  That you know you could have you could have gone to you and I are
• 32:36
  you could have gone here but Allah here's one that You didn't
• 32:38
  have a decision. You didn't have a decision to
• 32:41
  make. They made the decision of
• 32:42
  cutting you. Yes.
• 32:44
  And you had no idea. Oh my goodness, that cracks me
• 32:50
  up. Okay, well, it's awesome.
• 32:54
  You would, here's the deal. You would not, maybe not be on
• 32:57
  the Gill connections podcast if it weren't for.
• 32:59
  That's right, that's a good point.
• 33:03
  Your life could be drastically different, very true.
• 33:07
  Yeah. So where does track coaching
• 33:10
  come then? So you're still young, and
• 33:13
  luckily, you're on the team? Luckily, exit drills, but you're
• 33:16
  still in your mind, you'll be up strength and conditioning coach.
• 33:18
  That's where I'm going to be. Where does it actually flip over
• 33:20
  to like, oh, wait a minute. I don't I'm not supposed to be
• 33:22
  in the weight room full time. I'm actually supposed to be on
• 33:24
  the track full-time. Oh gosh boy.
• 33:27
  Good question. You know like I feel like it was
• 33:32
  Somewhere, you know, my fifth year of Eligibility, you know, I
• 33:37
  remember being. I feel like I have an, I do have
• 33:41
  a memory of running at an outdoor meet in Arkansas and it
• 33:45
  was just, it was a great day. It was great weather.
• 33:48
  You know, I ran, well, I thought at the time and I feel like that
• 33:52
  was that moment where I thought, man, I really like track.
• 33:55
  I just don't want to let it go, you know, so maybe so I think I
• 33:59
  go back to that was kind of that.
• 34:01
  That rite of passage. I guess that Eureka moment of,
• 34:04
  hey, I'm going to coach track. But yeah, that's probably what
• 34:09
  it was kind of late in the game. I feel like that, you know, so
• 34:11
  maybe I might have been leaning toward track and field at that
• 34:14
  at that time. But, you know, I love
• 34:16
  strengthening auditioning and I had great great strength,
• 34:18
  conditioning coaches up there. I think it was good coach
• 34:22
  Kramer. He's I think he's at North
• 34:23
  Dakota State now and he really introduced me to the NSC a and
• 34:29
  taught me all the Olympic lifts. It's and I just loved it.
• 34:32
  I really felt like that impacted out how well I ran on the track.
• 34:37
  And it was, you know, it was a big, it was a big thing for me.
• 34:40
  So I was really in love with human performance in general,
• 34:43
  but, but I think just working with buck and case and Travis
• 34:48
  and just the environment that those guys created we just, we
• 34:52
  just had so much fun and I thought, man, this is, I would
• 34:55
  love to do this for other athletes.
• 34:57
  So, what was the first step, if you get your undergrad there, at
• 35:01
  Iowa, did you going to be a great assistant somewhere to go
• 35:04
  straight into coaching? You go into straight the
• 35:06
  conditioning coaching. What was that first step for
• 35:07
  you? Yeah.
• 35:08
  So that's a great, another great question is, you know, at the
• 35:11
  time, you know, we had some volunteer assistance, you know,
• 35:15
  Jake Paul, I was one of them, but it always just really been
• 35:18
  assumed or conveyed, that, you know, you had to be invited back
• 35:22
  and I've always, you know, kind of laid back, kind of guy, I
• 35:26
  thought, well, if they, you know, and in order to be invited
• 35:29
  back, you had to be really a top quality.
• 35:31
  Athlete, you know, Jake was National Champion, things like
• 35:33
  that. And so I thought well maybe I'm
• 35:35
  just not good enough, you know? So to speak.
• 35:37
  I was I was an okay hurdler. And so lo and behold I get done
• 35:42
  with my last race University of Nebraska at the Regional
• 35:46
  Championship and buck comes up to me and we're in the end or
• 35:50
  the football area and he says, you know, hey what are you doing
• 35:53
  next year? Kind of a thing and I thought
• 35:57
  I'm just going to do this internship down in Davenport,
• 36:00
  that summer is going to graduate, do an internship, and
• 36:02
  then go back to California and then pursue a master's degree.
• 36:05
  So I just kind of thought I'd find a local Juco, just start
• 36:09
  coaching. Right, you know, do whatever.
• 36:12
  And and so I said, yeah, I'd love to come back and help coach
• 36:19
  and know what idea what I do for a job or where I was going to
• 36:22
  live or maybe. Yeah, just said, yeah, I'll come
• 36:24
  back and you know, That's really how I got into track coaching so
• 36:31
  so what? Yeah, well a lot of people could
• 36:33
  say that about lucky. Yeah.
• 36:35
  So what did that look like? I mean it is it's interesting.
• 36:37
  The way you just described that of like I had nowhere idea was
• 36:39
  going to live what it would look like that.
• 36:41
  That actually reminded me reminds me a lot of when a kid
• 36:44
  goes Pro out of college for track and field specifically
• 36:47
  it's like oh okay well I don't like and I gotta figure out
• 36:50
  where I'm going to live because I'm on scholarship anymore and I
• 36:52
  got to pay for this and time for act like it did the whole world
• 36:56
  we sometimes. Don't realize how easy how lucky
• 36:59
  we have it as a track athlete on a team.
• 37:03
  You know, schedules are made for you travels book for you.
• 37:06
  I mean, you must massage if you had that kind of school and
• 37:10
  athletic trainers and then you go pro and it's like, oh, I've
• 37:13
  got to figure all that stuff out.
• 37:14
  Now, with a with a agent and hopefully a coach Etc here.
• 37:18
  You kind of on that same front on the going, professional and
• 37:21
  coaching, it's like, cool. All right.
• 37:23
  So where am I gonna live? I got to figure out how I get
• 37:25
  paid now. How did that all, I mean, that's
• 37:29
  not the easiest thing in the world.
• 37:30
  How did you manage all that? Yeah, boy, that's, that's I've
• 37:33
  never heard it. You know, that analogy that you
• 37:35
  make is pretty pretty darn accurate.
• 37:37
  And, you know, and I think again, I and now that you ask
• 37:40
  the question, I never really thought about I think at the
• 37:44
  time, you know, it really came down to, you know, obsession is
• 37:48
  probably - word but that was my priority.
• 37:52
  You know, my priority was track and field.
• 37:55
  And so when Buck asked, there was no doubt in my mind that I
• 38:00
  was just going to say yes. And that I would make the rest
• 38:02
  work. You know, and my parents were a
• 38:05
  little disappointed because they're in California, and they
• 38:07
  were kind of like, well we thought you're coming in, you
• 38:09
  know, coming home and and I wanted to live in California,
• 38:12
  that was my kind of my dream. I Guess you know but but you
• 38:17
  know I just basically said yes on the spot and you know, Buck
• 38:20
  had told me, you know, I said, hey we don't have any graduate
• 38:22
  assistants but a volunteer is a good way to get your foot in the
• 38:24
  door, build a resume and I said that was really all I needed to
• 38:29
  hear. So I just kind of figured I'd
• 38:31
  find a place to live and I find a job lo and behold I Travis
• 38:36
  came back to Northern Iowa, Travis get hurt and he says, hey
• 38:40
  dude, want you live in my basement?
• 38:42
  Like it. Yeah.
• 38:45
  Okay, and Travis. And I were roommates for a
• 38:47
  little while and undergrad and so, so I thought.
• 38:50
  Okay, you know, and Travis had just got married.
• 38:52
  So he was kind of newlywed and I knew his wife and I thought is
• 38:56
  this okay, did you ask permission sir?
• 38:59
  I'd like to ask Little Nicky you know and and I don't you know,
• 39:04
  his his wife you know, Prague previously.
• 39:06
  And so I thought okay that's not strange or anything but but he
• 39:11
  says no, this would be great. You know, you've got this, we
• 39:13
  got this. Finished basement, you know, and
• 39:16
  will charge a cheap rent. So, I did that and I live with
• 39:19
  him and then I was kind of actually I remember being kind
• 39:24
  of lost at the time I worked at GNC in the evenings.
• 39:27
  That was the only real job I could find and I was still
• 39:31
  trying to train. I really wanted to keep training
• 39:34
  and see if I could run in the 13s and kind of kind of get to
• 39:37
  that. Maybe the B standard of the
• 39:39
  trials, or us Champs or something like that.
• 39:41
  So that was kind of my ulterior motive.
• 39:43
  I wanted to keep running the one tens and you know.
• 39:47
  So so we trained for a while and there was a group of kind of
• 39:50
  post-collegiate guys that we would, we would kind of work out
• 39:52
  around the same time. But after that first basically
• 39:58
  semester, I really just decided, hey, I'll stick around here and
• 40:02
  pursue my Master's Degree and so I kind of had, I guess a gap
• 40:05
  year in there and but it was great.
• 40:08
  It was great learning experience, it was, it was huge.
• 40:10
  So I kept coaching for Two more years while I got my Master's.
• 40:13
  So, three total, how did your mentality change?
• 40:17
  You know, when you're an athlete?
• 40:18
  We actually, you know, speaking of, you know, now knowing you're
• 40:21
  in Kansas, we had a really good conversation with Cameron Babb
• 40:25
  friend of yours up and Washburn. Yeah, about at the difference
• 40:29
  between athlete, an athlete and being a coach and kind of what
• 40:32
  we parceled out as we were talking it out on the podcast
• 40:36
  was you know being an athlete is a very selfish thing and it has
• 40:41
  to be that's not a You know, to your point about some words that
• 40:44
  are typically bad words, right? Selfish is always like a bad
• 40:47
  word. Well, it's not right that as an
• 40:49
  athlete. The coach is telling you cues,
• 40:52
  or workouts, and selfishly, you're trying to take those in
• 40:56
  and how can I get better? I'm the athlete.
• 40:58
  So, how do I, how do I use those cues?
• 41:01
  And as a coach, it's reversed, it's changed.
• 41:04
  Now, you're trying to get information so whether it's from
• 41:07
  coaching education or other coaches, you're listening to
• 41:10
  Doug and Travis and those guys. Coach.
• 41:12
  And now you're trying to synthesize that information so
• 41:14
  that you can push it out towards coaches.
• 41:17
  And that's a, that's a change. That's a change that thought
• 41:19
  process change in the motivation.
• 41:21
  Change in what excites you, you know, you were excited about
• 41:25
  yourself, running PRS. Now you have to change of like,
• 41:28
  well, that's out the door. Now, my excitement has to come
• 41:31
  from the athletes hitting P ARs and and achieving success.
• 41:35
  How did that mentality choose? How did you change that
• 41:38
  mentality for yourself of? Okay, I mean coaching bone out.
• 41:41
  Not. It's not about me and my
• 41:43
  athleticism. I can't run the races anymore,
• 41:46
  they have to do it. So how do I help?
• 41:47
  And how did you leverage yet? Some really great.
• 41:51
  I mean, they were really good coaches there, but they were
• 41:53
  kind of in there. I don't say they were in their
• 41:55
  infancy but, you know, they have certainly grown and coached,
• 41:58
  many many. Right, you know, many, many
• 42:02
  records and performances, Etc. As they've continued in your
• 42:05
  career. So you had some really great
• 42:07
  mentors if you will, for coaching there, how did you
• 42:10
  start picking their brain, or All re still just like I do.
• 42:13
  I'll put hurdles wherever you tell me to, you know, how did
• 42:16
  that process work for you? Well, I think, you know, kind of
• 42:21
  again, you know, I like your your comment of someone was
• 42:23
  constantly nudging me from behind.
• 42:27
  You know, what was really unique.
• 42:29
  I think about that time at Northern Iowa was, you know, you
• 42:32
  have that a key ingredient of of internal intrinsic drive, you
• 42:37
  know, there were, you know, people like Joey Woody who was
• 42:41
  helping coach but he was still running, I think I know he was
• 42:44
  still running, you not the elite level, Dave Paulson.
• 42:48
  Who had qualified for the Olympic trials that in 2004.
• 42:53
  So he was kind of doing the same thing.
• 42:54
  I was doing, we had Burke Bachman was also doing the same
• 42:58
  thing I was doing and so and then of course Travis was still
• 43:01
  competing and he was, he was on staff full time, you know?
• 43:04
  So we all kind of have this world.
• 43:07
  And then of course, he had, Jacob Paul II and his wife Nikki
• 43:10
  at the time was still competing. I mean, I could keep their or
• 43:13
  even a few more. Why he's.
• 43:16
  So we really have this kind of cohort, I guess.
• 43:19
  You know, and it helps because we had good guidance.
• 43:22
  I think buck and case. And just there again that that
• 43:26
  environment that they created was, was just super driven and,
• 43:30
  you know, so you were obsessed with, you know, who could come
• 43:33
  up with the best work out, you know.
• 43:35
  And then you had, we were, a lot of us were started our masters
• 43:39
  degree in exercise science. So we have this hyper Obsession
• 43:44
  trying to learn from, you know, trying to see what doug was
• 43:47
  doing on the track. And then, how does that relate
• 43:50
  what we're learning in class? And so, we would kind of toggle
• 43:53
  back and forth between some sports science and Physiology
• 43:57
  and then kind of the art of coaching with what buck and case
• 43:59
  were doing. And so it really allowed us this
• 44:01
  kind of lab setting and then a practical setting.
• 44:05
  Yeah. And so it really became pretty,
• 44:08
  pretty fun, you know? I mean yeah we would golly, we
• 44:13
  had air cannon burger at the same.
• 44:15
  At the time, he's up in South Dakota.
• 44:17
  Now he came. And I think a year after we
• 44:19
  started and we really just we spend a lot of time together,
• 44:25
  studying and analyzing and I think right in that timeframe
• 44:30
  you started to learn you know that your energy goes into the
• 44:33
  athletes and it isn't about what we do on the track, you know?
• 44:39
  So I think that that that same competitive fuel that we had as
• 44:43
  athletes, it started to trickle into the coaching realm, we
• 44:46
  wanted to become the best at that.
• 44:48
  I get I get this Vision like, with computer science major.
• 44:52
  So, you know, people who are writing code, a lot of times,
• 44:55
  they'll do, you know, they'll shove 10 to 12 in a room and
• 44:59
  they'll code for 12 hours. I mean, they're just, they're
• 45:01
  just bouncing off of each other bouncing ideas off of each
• 45:04
  other. I kind of get that same vision
• 45:06
  and for you guys that you have this.
• 45:09
  Consortium of people, but I don't said undergraduate young
• 45:13
  people that are certain to learn how to coach, they come off a
• 45:16
  good careers, they're taking exercise signs and then you have
• 45:19
  these, you know, gurus, if you will the Bucky's Doug and Travis
• 45:23
  and again there. So you know, especially Travis
• 45:25
  is so young in that gu worship there.
• 45:28
  I'll definitely give him good worship now but maybe not the
• 45:30
  end but but like this idea I love that vision of, you know,
• 45:34
  you'd go to the track and see what doug was doing for the day.
• 45:37
  And then you get I feel like I kind of got this Vision like Go
• 45:39
  back into a huddle and be like, all right, well in class today,
• 45:42
  we talked about and I did not take those classes, so I can't
• 45:45
  even make up the words and things like that.
• 45:47
  Well, oh, I see what doug was doing.
• 45:49
  Coach was doing this and he's trying to get this adaptation.
• 45:52
  I wonder why he didn't utilize this.
• 45:54
  The like it's just interesting. Like, I feel like you maybe were
• 45:56
  able to pack several years of coaching and coaching education
• 46:01
  into into a couple of years because you it was accelerated
• 46:06
  because of the people you had with you and the mentorship you
• 46:08
  had on the Coaching side as well.
• 46:11
  Yeah. I think I mean, man, you're
• 46:13
  good. You know, like, I mean you
• 46:16
  really hit the nail on the head, I'm about to huddling.
• 46:19
  I mean, to the point where we had a joke, we would call him a
• 46:23
  Vortex, you know, kind of similar to, you know, tornado, I
• 46:29
  guess you would say. Like, so if we just have the two
• 46:31
  of us talking training that was like, you know, just two of us,
• 46:36
  then the next thing, you know, we'd pull somebody else in and
• 46:38
  then we pull somebody else in And we literally did what you
• 46:42
  described. I mean, we would take, I
• 46:44
  remember sitting with Doug and looking over his shoulder and
• 46:47
  asked asking questions and try not to be disrespectful of like
• 46:52
  like I was questioning him you know?
• 46:54
  But I thought why do you put that?
• 46:55
  They're what makes you put that there and you know and then
• 46:59
  we're also trying to figure out okay what we learn about you
• 47:03
  know anaerobic glycolysis and in class and you know, how does how
• 47:08
  do Doug's workouts match? Eh what the textbook is saying.
• 47:11
  And you know, and so we would we spend a lot of time, you know?
• 47:14
  I look back and I think, man we were we were like losers.
• 47:17
  No, I was gonna say lucky, he's some loser Lucky Dragon doing
• 47:25
  this sort of you know, but we loved it at the time and you
• 47:33
  know, so yeah we were just again that word obsessed probably
• 47:38
  comes to mind. Being able to look at what what
• 47:41
  cases Buck would do and study, you know, everything that they
• 47:45
  did and then try to relate it back to, you know, to the
• 47:51
  training and how the two meshed, you know, it was it was really
• 47:54
  fun. I mean we probably overanalyze
• 47:56
  it quite a bit but but it was cool.
• 47:58
  It really worked out awesome in the end.
• 48:00
  Yeah, seems like a great example.
• 48:02
  Just immersion of just in a little bit to the point of The
• 48:05
  Best of Both Worlds. Some people get a great lesson.
• 48:09
  And learned the art of coaching and some other people go down a
• 48:12
  different path and they get the science part of it and they get,
• 48:15
  you know, fully immersed that way.
• 48:17
  This seems like a very unique, like, when you said cortex, I
• 48:20
  actually thought of, like two colors coming to get, you know,
• 48:22
  that make a different color. It's like, oh, here's the Art.
• 48:25
  Here's what you're learning. And I'm not saying Doug isn't
• 48:27
  all aren't guy by any chance. I'm saying, you know, what doug
• 48:29
  was doing on the track is Art. So, here's, here's that, Doug
• 48:32
  side of it. And then here's the, the
• 48:34
  textbook side of exercise physiology.
• 48:36
  And they're both just rapping together to create this, this An
• 48:40
  experience that's really unique. I don't hear that very much
• 48:44
  amongst coaches and their Journeys.
• 48:46
  No, that was really we look back and think that was kind of maybe
• 48:50
  unique or you know, it's at least two Northern Iowa and we
• 48:54
  felt like that was something special that we could get maybe
• 48:56
  only only there I mean, I'm sure you can get it other places but
• 49:00
  you know Doug was very much, you know, he was an art guy he
• 49:03
  understood I think the science and the intricacies but you
• 49:06
  know, but he was very much kind of your players.
• 49:09
  Coach and I think he can read his athletes exceptionally well
• 49:13
  and you know, so he just knew what to apply is like a chess
• 49:16
  game that he felt like he was playing and so I really grew to
• 49:21
  kind of respect what he was doing Meanwhile.
• 49:24
  We're immersed in the data the science and you know, so so
• 49:28
  again, yeah blending those two worlds was was pretty cool.
• 49:32
  Well shout out to dunk case because he is one of the guys
• 49:34
  that I think it's because he is very kind of reserved.
• 49:38
  You know, he doesn't get talked. Not a lot, but when you look at
• 49:40
  what is that athletes are doing there.
• 49:42
  It's like somebody something's going on.
• 49:46
  Not just right but like continually right.
• 49:48
  I mean, you know, there's always Fast Times coming out of his
• 49:51
  group. So I'm just always amazed at and
• 49:54
  just you know, maybe he's just not on social media.
• 49:56
  Maybe that's why he doesn't get a lot of pop or something.
• 49:58
  I don't know but he deserves me laid back guy.
• 50:01
  Yeah, he deserves it all let's keep moving for the sake of
• 50:03
  time. Did you go?
• 50:04
  Where did you go after you got your working on your master's
• 50:07
  degree you get that? Where do you go?
• 50:09
  Go after that, so try and think. So my next stop was Santa
• 50:16
  Barbara City College, but you did go to California.
• 50:19
  Yeah, I did and that was you know, like I guess my ultimate
• 50:22
  coaching dream, you know, you know, the junior college level
• 50:25
  was something that I wasn't, you know, I guess super excited to
• 50:30
  do but but it was coaching. I was being paid not a lot fact
• 50:37
  hardly anything and but I was being paid to coach Collegiate
• 50:41
  track in California, and that was kind of my My first end
• 50:45
  goal, I guess you could say. And so I was ecstatic and went
• 50:50
  out to Santa Barbara and it was, it was a dream, my wife.
• 50:54
  And I were we that was our first year coaching together.
• 50:57
  In fact, she got me the job. Did you meet her at Northern
• 50:59
  Iowa? We met at Northern Iowa.
• 51:01
  Yeah. See Northern Iowa.
• 51:03
  That's why you didn't go to California when the parents
• 51:06
  moved out there. Aaron was waiting for you in
• 51:09
  Northern Iowa. That's yeah, right.
• 51:10
  Yeah, that's awesome. So you later Is she from Iowa?
• 51:16
  Her parents are from Iowa. In fact, her dad.
• 51:19
  So my father-in-law. He also ran track in Northern
• 51:21
  Iowa, back in the 70s and she's she was born in Iowa but she
• 51:27
  graduated high school in Kansas City.
• 51:29
  Previous animation East. Oh yeah, so you dragged her all
• 51:34
  the way to California more or less?
• 51:36
  I kind of nudged her the timing wasn't quite ideal.
• 51:40
  You know she she finished her undergraduate.
• 51:43
  I was still In my first year, I think of graduate school so I
• 51:46
  had another year to go. And so she went to University of
• 51:50
  California Santa Barbara for I think a year she want to do
• 51:55
  environmental sciences and I remember her talking to me or
• 51:58
  emailing me or something that's time and saying, you know, hey,
• 52:01
  I live like three miles from this track and I was working
• 52:04
  out. I saw the team and I kind of
• 52:05
  miss coaching and I thought about asking him if I could help
• 52:08
  coach but I said yeah, go for it, do it.
• 52:11
  So she did that. And I think They ended up
• 52:14
  putting her on a small stipend and she coach pole vault there
• 52:17
  and loved it and got to know the head coach.
• 52:20
  So that's fall time. So I finished.
• 52:24
  I think it was that year, I'm forgetting the years but I came
• 52:29
  out for spring break to visit her and I ran unattached at a
• 52:33
  track meet at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and met the head coach,
• 52:37
  you know, and he was a great guy, you know, he's just like
• 52:40
  hey man, you want a job, I'll hire you and I thought I'll take
• 52:43
  it. So at Cal Poly, slow, this was
• 52:47
  at Santa Barbara City, okay? Okay.
• 52:49
  Yeah, the meat was at Cal Poly slow, oh God.
• 52:51
  Okay, yeah, that would have been Mark Conover.
• 52:54
  Yeah, so the coach at Santa Barbara City was a guy by the
• 52:56
  name of Keith Kephart, right? Yeah.
• 52:58
  And so I came out and train for a week at Santa Barbara City
• 53:02
  admit key and then I rode along with the team on the bus up to
• 53:06
  the meet at Cal Poly. Slow I ran out of attached and
• 53:10
  the one tens and so I got to know him and You know, he was
• 53:15
  like Hey man if you want a job, you know, let me know and I
• 53:17
  thought, yeah, I do. I'm letting you know, right now.
• 53:19
  Yeah. Yeah, this is cut to the chase,
• 53:21
  man, right now. Yeah, I didn't even ask salary
• 53:24
  or anything, right? The guys like well was gonna be
• 53:28
  10 now it's five because you're too eager.
• 53:33
  So, you know, you had a, you had or still have a pretty big
• 53:38
  passion about coaching in California and there are a lot
• 53:40
  of people that would share that vision and desire.
• 53:44
  How long did you stay out there and what happened?
• 53:47
  So I was only, I was only there for a year and I loved it.
• 53:51
  You know, like I said, my wife and I were coaching together
• 53:55
  Keith was was awesome to work with, you know, he was just a
• 53:59
  good Mentor, but he had told me that when I got the Mission, you
• 54:05
  know, that he, I think Keith's wife.
• 54:07
  I think she still coaches. May be at Moorpark College and
• 54:11
  so there's about an hour south and he was commuting.
• 54:14
  And so, he had given me fair warning and said, hey, you know,
• 54:19
  I might do this a year or two and if I take off you know, I'll
• 54:23
  recommend you to be the next head coach and so I thought,
• 54:26
  hey, I'm going to take this, you know, this is great.
• 54:29
  I really had you know. No, I didn't mind if I As head
• 54:33
  coach or not. I just want to coach and and so
• 54:37
  fast forward so he had kind of given his notice, I guess.
• 54:40
  And they were kind of in the search process and the way that
• 54:43
  the California Community College, does it at least at the
• 54:45
  time, was kind of unique, there's a teaching assignment
• 54:48
  along with it. And so, lots of things were kind
• 54:50
  of up in the air and I just kind of felt like, hey I should maybe
• 54:54
  just see what else is out there. Just in case, you know something
• 54:59
  happens they bring in a new head coach and he doesn't want me
• 55:00
  there and so So, I applied for a job in Canton, Missouri at
• 55:07
  Culver Stockton College. Oh, yeah.
• 55:09
  And and they were crazy enough to hire me and so I went from
• 55:15
  Santa Barbara to small-town Missouri.
• 55:17
  Yeah. So yeah, they offered me that
• 55:20
  position and and I took it so. So you're all-in on coaching
• 55:26
  like this is the career. Yeah, that this point.
• 55:29
  Yeah. So Culver Stockton NAIA.
• 55:34
  Yes, so you're learning you know, you were in ei8 st.
• 55:38
  Ambrose you go to division one. You go to Community College out
• 55:40
  in California, which is a unique system you mentioned about, you
• 55:44
  know, like you have to have a master's degree to be a head
• 55:47
  coach, because there's always a teaching assignment, pretty sure
• 55:51
  that's with all community colleges out in the California
• 55:54
  side and then now you go to Missouri Drac animals, they
• 56:00
  Dragonair and along to your wife, but do you know, Isn't oh
• 56:04
  right. Yeah these are family decisions.
• 56:06
  Now this point it's not just you going wherever you want to go,
• 56:09
  right? And go to Culver Stockton, how
• 56:11
  long are you there? And how was that?
• 56:13
  It was great. Just two years and, you know,
• 56:16
  it's just really interesting, you know, Aaron and I actually
• 56:18
  we're not married at the time fact, we're not even engaged
• 56:22
  and, you know, I look back and think, thank God, she followed
• 56:25
  me, you know, because she came to Culver and was my volunteer
• 56:29
  assistant there. So she work with the pole vault
• 56:31
  and the high jump You know, she do, you know she drive the van
• 56:35
  or whatever else that I needed and she just took a position.
• 56:40
  Aaron actually, has quite an interesting scenario story.
• 56:42
  Is she took a position at a para as a para.
• 56:46
  So she would commute about 30 miles north and was a para for
• 56:49
  basically a year school year. I'm sorry para.
• 56:53
  She was like a paraprofessional like a teacher's aide.
• 56:56
  Okay, okay, yeah, so she did that for a junior high class and
• 57:00
  then she would drive down and Coach pole vault with me.
• 57:03
  And so, we did that basically for a couple years she ended up
• 57:07
  getting put on full time and our second year.
• 57:10
  And so we. So we were able to focus more on
• 57:12
  coaching. But yeah, we went to Culver and
• 57:16
  it was it was awesome. I mean it was two years of it
• 57:19
  was challenging at the time, but I just wanted something that was
• 57:23
  my own and I could kind of do it my way so to speak and had a
• 57:28
  great two years there before, I came to Emporia my favorite
• 57:31
  question to ask someone. When their first head coaching
• 57:34
  gig, now that you get and you can look back on it, where you
• 57:37
  ready, are you ready to be a head coach?
• 57:41
  You know I like to think I was we all do and then we get the
• 57:48
  chair and Culver was a great place to learn.
• 57:50
  You know, it was it was going through, a transitional time, I
• 57:53
  think the college was as a whole and it was a startup program,
• 57:57
  you know. So I got to watch basically the
• 58:00
  track be built and All the purchasing of the equipment and
• 58:05
  things like that. And, and looking back at some of
• 58:08
  that I think, you know, maybe no I wasn't ready at the time.
• 58:11
  You know, I think recruiting wise and day-to-day operations
• 58:14
  Having learned at Northern Iowa. I felt pretty confident in that
• 58:17
  regard, but just some of the bigger, you know, decisions or
• 58:20
  conversations. You know.
• 58:22
  I felt like I was maybe a little green but it was a great, great
• 58:26
  place to kind of break yourself in and kind of kind of cut your
• 58:29
  teeth. I guess you could say.
• 58:31
  So it really prepared me well. Those two years and Pulver was
• 58:34
  great. Tiny little town of Canton but
• 58:36
  we loved it there. It was a great town.
• 58:39
  Yeah, it's it's one thing to know the think, you know, all
• 58:43
  the aspects. It's another to actually be the
• 58:45
  person who's making those decisions, especially for
• 58:48
  someone you're still at this point, your infancy of your
• 58:51
  coaching career. I mean, you've got a couple
• 58:53
  years of Northern Iowa, you got a year and California.
• 58:57
  I mean, you are still pup is early steps.
• 59:00
  Efficient of coaching, track and field and Here you are.
• 59:03
  Now you're in the, the big boy chair, so to speak, where all
• 59:05
  decisions come to you. So maybe is that unique aspect
• 59:09
  of where that program was that? Helped out with that.
• 59:12
  Because I mean, can you imagine yourself think back to where you
• 59:15
  were at that point when you first started Culver and now as
• 59:18
  the head coaching for you, could you imagine being the head coach
• 59:20
  of Emporia at that point at that 27 like, oh yeah, couldn't have
• 59:25
  done that, right? A lot different, right?
• 59:27
  Lot of different decisions, lot different importance of
• 59:30
  decisions. Like that, what's the word I'm
• 59:32
  looking here? Here repercussions like oh man,
• 59:35
  I make this decision if I make the wrong one.
• 59:36
  This affects people. Yeah just a magnitude magnitude.
• 59:39
  Yeah, right, exactly. So you go from Culvert to
• 59:42
  Emporia? Yes.
• 59:45
  Yes. As an assistant coach correct
• 59:47
  yet. For two years in Aaron comes
• 59:49
  with. Yep.
• 59:50
  And you're still dating or you're married.
• 59:52
  So we're engaged at the okay. All right, we're deaf.
• 59:54
  We're going to do a part 2 and have Aaron.
• 59:56
  Come on, give her side of all that.
• 59:59
  All I get, I don't like getting here in story through you
• 1:00:00
  because I like to hear from the person, but we made it.
• 1:00:03
  Your own other side and be like Aaron.
• 1:00:04
  So he tells us it was challenging at times Emporia.
• 1:00:16
  Now I have to ask you certain, I don't want to assume it doesn't
• 1:00:20
  appear that. You knew of a Culver Stockton
• 1:00:21
  before you applied and interviewed all that head.
• 1:00:24
  You did, you know, about Emporia in any history tradition before
• 1:00:28
  you applied and and accepted the position.
• 1:00:31
  They're in Emporia So I really didn't know a whole lot about
• 1:00:34
  it. I mean I'd heard of it and the
• 1:00:36
  funny thing is is I heard nothing but good things, very
• 1:00:39
  brief comments, you know, just through coaching conversations
• 1:00:43
  that it's a great spot and that the head coach was a great guy,
• 1:00:47
  you know, you know. He was a real hard charger of a
• 1:00:49
  head coach and but a good but a good place.
• 1:00:53
  Other than that, I couldn't have picked it out on a map.
• 1:00:56
  No idea. You know and really through my
• 1:00:59
  time as a graduate coach at Northern Iowa.
• 1:01:03
  There was a graduate assistant, Wichita State, and so his name
• 1:01:07
  is John David, John, David Harris.
• 1:01:08
  So, that was my former bosses son and I'm trying.
• 1:01:13
  Yeah. So there was the connection and,
• 1:01:16
  you know, you just kind of, I guess you, you see the cross
• 1:01:20
  country coaches association, you know, the track and field
• 1:01:23
  Association. You see the kind of postings
• 1:01:24
  and, you know, he and I were the same age.
• 1:01:28
  He had taken a position, I think, at Alabama, Birmingham,
• 1:01:31
  Maybe. Or something.
• 1:01:33
  But then I knew, you know, we kept in touch, I knew he was in
• 1:01:35
  Emporia working with his dad and I kind of thought that was neat.
• 1:01:39
  You know, that he would take over for his dad, someday and
• 1:01:42
  came across a posting that Emporia State was looking for a
• 1:01:44
  coach. And so, I reached out to him,
• 1:01:47
  kind of twofold, you know, I was inquiring about the position,
• 1:01:50
  but I really was kind of curious as to where he was going and I
• 1:01:53
  thought, wow, he's not taking over for his dad, he must have
• 1:01:56
  got something, you know, great or something.
• 1:01:59
  But, you know, he was just getting out of coaching.
• 1:02:02
  And he said, hey, you know, I'm just having, you know, some life
• 1:02:04
  changes and things like that. And so, my dad's looking for an
• 1:02:06
  assistant, would you be interested?
• 1:02:09
  And I said, yes I would. So, yeah, so why go from you?
• 1:02:16
  There's a lot of reasons we can assume going from NAIA division
• 1:02:20
  two, but you're also going from head coach to assistant coach.
• 1:02:24
  Why this change? Why not continue at Culver
• 1:02:26
  Stockton running your own program?
• 1:02:29
  You know, I think, you know, kind of looking at it.
• 1:02:30
  You know from a young Young coaching position or
• 1:02:33
  perspective, I guess, I was thinking, you know, it's a move
• 1:02:37
  up, maybe so to speak, or at least diagonal, you know, I
• 1:02:41
  thought, well, I can go to the NCAA division two, I think at
• 1:02:45
  the time, my aspirations were still to be a D1, you know, type
• 1:02:49
  coach, you know, so, I important state would be a nice stepping
• 1:02:54
  stone to them. And so, you know, my wife's from
• 1:02:58
  Kansas City, so obviously through we do a little homework,
• 1:03:01
  we find out. Hey, it's 90 minutes maybe from
• 1:03:03
  Kansas City, so lots of perks but that thought had gone
• 1:03:07
  through my mind. In fact, Dave asked me that very
• 1:03:09
  question and I really just felt like there were a lot of things
• 1:03:12
  I was doing at Culver that I felt were correct.
• 1:03:16
  Maybe I wasn't certain and I kind of welcome the opportunity
• 1:03:19
  to have a an opportunity to learn from somebody.
• 1:03:22
  That's kind of done it for a while.
• 1:03:23
  Yeah, that's what I wondered. When I ask that question about
• 1:03:25
  where you ready at Culver, because I was like, there's no
• 1:03:27
  way you haven't had a Dave, Harris type.
• 1:03:32
  Person to Mentor, you in that side of things of like, hey, I'm
• 1:03:35
  going to have you do scheduling. Here's how I've done it in and
• 1:03:38
  get you that experience. Don't have the didn't have any
• 1:03:40
  experience and having that Mentor, that sounds like, man, I
• 1:03:43
  can't imagine taking over a program and just everything's
• 1:03:45
  new to you, but, you know, you never thought about scheduling
• 1:03:48
  and budgeting and travel and recruiting and etcetera, you
• 1:03:51
  know. So that's that's just
• 1:03:53
  interesting. And I like that, you kind of had
• 1:03:55
  that mindshare of like, okay, well let's go learn from a Dave
• 1:03:57
  hairs like maybe, that'll maybe that's what a lead me to a
• 1:04:01
  division, one or whatever. Ever you thought might be the
• 1:04:03
  next steps at that point, you know?
• 1:04:04
  I right. So you're at Emporia how many
• 1:04:06
  years have you been in a. So from that year to now, how
• 1:04:08
  many years have you been at Emporia?
• 1:04:10
  Let's see. So that was August of 0.9.
• 1:04:12
  Okay. So what is that 12?
• 1:04:15
  30 2013. Yeah.
• 1:04:16
  And how many years now, have you been the head coach?
• 1:04:19
  So Dave left, he took a position at University of Nebraska and
• 1:04:21
  August of 2011. Yeah, that's what I was promoted
• 1:04:24
  up. So so 2011 till now as we say
• 1:04:28
  with that had been a while so you were only an important for
• 1:04:30
  two years and you get the Job here we ready.
• 1:04:33
  Are you ready this time? No the time.
• 1:04:38
  I'm like yeah yeah I'm ready. That was a much more definitive
• 1:04:41
  answer than what is developed Goldberg.
• 1:04:44
  You know you're mostly because you're feeling be excused, you
• 1:04:47
  know and then you realize within about 45 seconds that you're not
• 1:04:50
  going to feel the shoot right quicker than I realized.
• 1:04:53
  That was not going to happen. You know that that I felt more,
• 1:04:58
  I took a big leap, I guess you could say.
• 1:05:00
  Yeah. That's also.
• 1:05:03
  Yeah. You don't feel shoes.
• 1:05:05
  You wear your own and yes in those shoes are marked by people
• 1:05:09
  like a day, even your life and mentoring, you and things like
• 1:05:11
  that, but they're still your shoes.
• 1:05:12
  They're not, they're not his, you're sure.
• 1:05:15
  So tell us about the experience of being, you know, being at one
• 1:05:18
  place for 10-plus years and starting out as an assistant.
• 1:05:22
  Now, the head coach and just tell us a little bit about your
• 1:05:24
  experience there as the as the coach at Emporia.
• 1:05:27
  Yeah, it's been. I mean, it's been a, it's been a
• 1:05:29
  great experience to, of course, you know, I mean we love it
• 1:05:31
  here. You know, and it's been, it's
• 1:05:34
  been good. This is probably been the most,
• 1:05:37
  I guess, personal learning personal growth, whatever how we
• 1:05:41
  want to call that, you know, because you go through a lot of
• 1:05:45
  different stages, you know. So now I feel like I'm kind of
• 1:05:48
  kind of figuring out and learning that, you know, that
• 1:05:50
  now you're in that 40-something age bracket, you've got some
• 1:05:53
  kids, you know, priorities tend to shift a little bit.
• 1:05:58
  But you know, when we first started, you know, and I say we
• 1:06:01
  might Wife and I you know, and when did you know, it was, it
• 1:06:03
  was just coaching, you know, all coaching all the time, you know,
• 1:06:09
  and it's still very much is, you know, but you we fell in love
• 1:06:13
  with the community and I love the mission at Emporia State,
• 1:06:16
  you know, you're you're really coaching, you know, you feel
• 1:06:19
  like you're in the trenches working with the athletes.
• 1:06:23
  Sorry my my phone's ringing. I apologize for that.
• 1:06:26
  I'm good. No good guy but you know you're
• 1:06:29
  definitely you feel like you can get down.
• 1:06:32
  And kind of get to the nitty-gritty.
• 1:06:33
  I guess you could say of coaching, you've got lots of
• 1:06:36
  different athletes of varying capabilities.
• 1:06:38
  You've got some that are very talented others that are much
• 1:06:41
  more developmental, you know? So you've got to get real
• 1:06:45
  creative as a coach but but it's been great, you know, it's a
• 1:06:50
  phenomenal spot, you know, had a few opportunities to maybe move
• 1:06:54
  on but there's just something about this place that really
• 1:06:57
  just I just keep feeling like there's unfinished business, I
• 1:07:00
  guess you could say. And, and we just really enjoy
• 1:07:04
  being here. So, we feel like we've got some
• 1:07:06
  Roots, which in the coaching profession is.
• 1:07:09
  It's a tricky thing, you know, not many Run Deep, right?
• 1:07:14
  And so so where did this position where, you know, hey,
• 1:07:17
  we're here, you know? And this is where we want to be.
• 1:07:20
  When we end up here, you know forever, I have no idea, you
• 1:07:23
  know, we try to try to, we want to plan but we want to try to
• 1:07:27
  live in the now and make the most of, you know, at you.
• 1:07:29
  And I we you know, we always would say you know, hey the big
• 1:07:31
  time is where At. And so we try to really focus on
• 1:07:34
  being successful and being big-time here.
• 1:07:37
  They let the future kind of take care of itself.
• 1:07:39
  You're a coach, not a fortune-teller abstain.
• 1:07:42
  Exactly. That's right.
• 1:07:43
  Well, you got it in the art of coaching, it never changes.
• 1:07:46
  Meaning, there's always something we try to plan our
• 1:07:49
  schedules out as a track coach, as much as possible, but things
• 1:07:51
  still priorities change on a daily basis.
• 1:07:55
  And so Steve, here has some prior engagement that has come
• 1:07:59
  up since we booked this. So we're going to start wrapping
• 1:08:01
  Up here a little bit Steve for you to get.
• 1:08:03
  So I but I had three kind of topics that kind of kind of come
• 1:08:05
  up. And then I'd like to maybe just
• 1:08:07
  do some more rapid, fire answers and then I'll then I'll cut you
• 1:08:10
  loose and go back to doing the the day.
• 1:08:12
  Joe, you did got there, you know, we mentioned Emporia State
• 1:08:16
  and, you know, culture is a really it's a really hard thing
• 1:08:20
  to build and design and is sometimes not sometimes part of
• 1:08:23
  culture happens without being intentional at all.
• 1:08:27
  There's some happenstance things that occur.
• 1:08:30
  So like one of the examples I would Was like Steve Prefontaine
• 1:08:33
  you know that Prefontaine was this good-looking guy that died
• 1:08:37
  early and was a distance Runner that all play in that Bill Nye
• 1:08:41
  are Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman were together and
• 1:08:44
  created Nike. Those are things that you
• 1:08:45
  couldn't have planned at Eugene. Oregon to become Track Town USA.
• 1:08:50
  Like, you just, you could have said, hey, we're gonna make this
• 1:08:52
  Trek Town, USA. And you know how we're gonna do
• 1:08:53
  it. We're gonna have a really good
• 1:08:54
  distance. Runner that's going to die
• 1:08:56
  early. So he becomes a lure and then
• 1:08:59
  we're gonna start this Mega billion company like the At
• 1:09:01
  those happened, right? One of the things at Emporia
• 1:09:05
  that, I'm not sure I'm sure some happenstance come in, maybe some
• 1:09:09
  intentionality is Emporia State is really almost a famous for
• 1:09:13
  producing graduate, assistants who become full-time track
• 1:09:17
  coaches. Like it's almost a No Cameron
• 1:09:19
  and I had a good joke about it because he GA that Emporia as
• 1:09:22
  well but there are so many gaas that seemingly come through
• 1:09:27
  Emporia State. Can you tell us about is?
• 1:09:29
  Is that intentional? What goes on there?
• 1:09:31
  What's in the water if you will as a ga program for a track
• 1:09:35
  coaches? Emporia?
• 1:09:36
  Yeah. Yeah, good good.
• 1:09:38
  Good thinking there. I mean, it's yeah, I think you
• 1:09:41
  know the MIAA Conference of course, is is really good, you
• 1:09:44
  know, it's successful. You know.
• 1:09:48
  And I wish I could find a way, you know, I don't want to see
• 1:09:52
  it's a regional thing or a conference thing, but I think
• 1:09:56
  you find people that they want to get into coaching.
• 1:10:01
  And this region makes it accessible.
• 1:10:04
  I think to some degree. So you kind of have ingredients.
• 1:10:07
  Now, whatever you want to do with those ingredients, I guess
• 1:10:09
  is up to you, you know. So it's, you know, it's not a
• 1:10:12
  New York or Boston where, you know, hey if you want to coach
• 1:10:15
  part-time or b a g a but, you know, your rent might be a
• 1:10:18
  little pricey, so we're going to need to do lots of things.
• 1:10:20
  You know, here it's a small town, you know.
• 1:10:22
  So as a little more affordable, you know, I've noticed
• 1:10:26
  throughout my years, you know, you find an assistant coach that
• 1:10:29
  was an athlete within the within the league.
• 1:10:32
  They move into a ga position. Maybe they get married or what
• 1:10:35
  not and they stay within the region and so you can you can do
• 1:10:40
  that, you know, you can be a newlywed type of couple or even
• 1:10:45
  single and on one or two incomes or a small income and you know,
• 1:10:49
  you can really get your feet wet and I think then allows
• 1:10:52
  permanence, you know, they like some of the coaches in our
• 1:10:54
  league of been around for quite a while and they're very
• 1:10:57
  successful and I think that there's consistency there and so
• 1:11:01
  I think that's something that I'm at going back to Emporia
• 1:11:04
  State specifically, you know, we just kind of capture that
• 1:11:07
  students want to come here. Maybe they're athletes within
• 1:11:10
  the region. It's affordable living, you
• 1:11:13
  know, employee States a good school, you know, so you have
• 1:11:16
  all these ingredients and then if you get somebody in here
• 1:11:18
  that's really passionate, you know, one thing we try to do I
• 1:11:22
  think Dave did this and I do the same as we try to give the gaas
• 1:11:25
  autonomy and let them know. Hey, you're you're in charge of
• 1:11:28
  this area. You have to recruit it.
• 1:11:30
  You have to develop it. And then we need you to do these
• 1:11:32
  tasks you know. So there isn't a an instance
• 1:11:37
  where you know you're just kind of there you know you're going
• 1:11:40
  to write the workouts you know you're going to do those types
• 1:11:42
  of things. So let's go only try to compare
• 1:11:45
  them. Yeah like that.
• 1:11:46
  Thank you for that. Another topic that very specific
• 1:11:49
  to you in knowing that we don't talk about X's and O's here on
• 1:11:54
  this podcast. But I'm curious you brought up
• 1:11:56
  strength and conditioning and some of the mentors of people
• 1:12:01
  that fed into you. You on the strength and
• 1:12:02
  conditioning side. And as that relates to track,
• 1:12:06
  I'm always curious. There seems to be a kind of its
• 1:12:10
  tug-of-war, but there's there are track coaches who say, yeah,
• 1:12:15
  I give my track team to the strength and conditioning coach.
• 1:12:18
  And I step out, I don't say anything.
• 1:12:22
  Others would say, I don't, I give it to the strength and
• 1:12:26
  conditioning coach, but I'm in their everyday, or I'm helping
• 1:12:29
  write the workouts with their strength, and conditioning
• 1:12:30
  coach. And then, There's another camp
• 1:12:32
  that says, oh no, I'm the track coach.
• 1:12:34
  I am also the strength and conditioning coach.
• 1:12:36
  Where do you see strength and conditioning as a coach Gene
• 1:12:41
  profession and activity, as it relates to track and feel what's
• 1:12:45
  maybe how maybe how you do it, or, and or what is the ideal way
• 1:12:50
  that you, if you had magic wand how you would do it?
• 1:12:53
  What do you think in regards to training addition coaching for
• 1:12:55
  track coaching? You know, I think as this as a
• 1:12:58
  track and field coach, you know, you either have to have somebody
• 1:13:00
  that is an extension. Each one of you to some degree
• 1:13:04
  or you got to do it, you know, like you know how does heavy
• 1:13:08
  lifting or Olympic weightlifting or jump squats versus heavy
• 1:13:12
  squats versus, you know, whatever.
• 1:13:15
  You know, how does that impact speed or jumping ability?
• 1:13:17
  You know, you know, we mentioned Travis, you know, and they've
• 1:13:20
  got a strength and conditioning coach at Arkansas by the name of
• 1:13:22
  Matt Clark, and Matt was an athlete at Northern Iowa.
• 1:13:25
  And so, he really learned from the similar school and so Travis
• 1:13:29
  can can trust Matt and they Very cohesively and I think that's
• 1:13:34
  something pretty. I don't know if it's rare but
• 1:13:36
  it's special, you know. So I guess I would I'm not sure
• 1:13:41
  exactly which Camp you know I mean definitely not the type of
• 1:13:44
  Coach that's going to turn them over.
• 1:13:45
  Just say see ya. You know.
• 1:13:48
  I'm going to want to have an influence there right now.
• 1:13:51
  You know I right you know for our sprinters and such as you
• 1:13:55
  know I write that lifting and I'm constantly trying new
• 1:13:58
  things. But you know when you do go
• 1:14:01
  back, What, you know, the foundational things that we
• 1:14:03
  learned in the science that yeah, you know, that maximal
• 1:14:07
  strength is important. And so we tend to start there,
• 1:14:12
  you know, and how you develop that along the way is an
• 1:14:16
  important thing. And I think that is a track
• 1:14:17
  coach, you know I want to have some severe oversight or at
• 1:14:21
  least cat least observation of how what is the cause and effect
• 1:14:25
  here, you know, if we implement this type of training, what how
• 1:14:29
  does it impact the athlete? You know, so So being so I still
• 1:14:33
  love it. I still love being in the weight
• 1:14:35
  room, you know, some pretty active in that regard.
• 1:14:39
  What advice would you give? There are some programs where
• 1:14:42
  the track coach has no say it is literally tell your, here's your
• 1:14:46
  lifting time for your track kids.
• 1:14:48
  You have no input on this track coach.
• 1:14:50
  I I'm the professional in there. Are certainly Professionals in
• 1:14:53
  the strength and conditioning world, just like there are
• 1:14:55
  Professionals in the track and field coaching world.
• 1:14:57
  And there are certainly I'll use the word ego ego starting.
• 1:15:01
  And coaches just like sorry boys and girls.
• 1:15:04
  Are he go track coaches as well? There are no at all.
• 1:15:06
  Right. Just so what advice might you
• 1:15:09
  give for someone who's you know, had passion and experiences
• 1:15:12
  Extreme Conditioning coach as it relates to track and field and
• 1:15:15
  obviously as a track and field coach, for someone who comes in
• 1:15:18
  the program and it is, I don't get to say anything, our kids
• 1:15:22
  have to be in the weight room a next time and maybe I'm allowed
• 1:15:25
  in there, but I'm going to, I'm certainly not allowed to say,
• 1:15:27
  Hey, you know, today we're doing this on the track, maybe we
• 1:15:30
  should do something similar to this.
• 1:15:31
  Rumor. Right.
• 1:15:33
  What advice might you have for those coach put put, put me on
• 1:15:37
  the spot here. Yeah, I realize I realize what
• 1:15:39
  I'm doing here. Ya know, that's, that's a good.
• 1:15:41
  That's a good question, you know.
• 1:15:42
  I think right off the bat, you know, I'm slowly acquired that
• 1:15:46
  most things in life, fortunately or unfortunately tend to come
• 1:15:51
  down to a little bit of a power struggle and as a coach, you
• 1:15:55
  know, you want to do the best that you can.
• 1:15:58
  And this is what I would do is, you know, try to build a
• 1:16:01
  relationship. A ship, you know, you know, and
• 1:16:04
  I would hope that any strength and conditioning coach would
• 1:16:07
  also understand that, you know, hey, we want to be strong, but
• 1:16:10
  they're going to work in cohesion with the event coach
• 1:16:13
  because, you know, the track and field coach.
• 1:16:15
  That's the guy that's on the line if the athletes don't
• 1:16:17
  perform or the placing at the conference or the national
• 1:16:20
  level, or what have you, you know, that's, that's the coach
• 1:16:23
  that's on the line. So I think if I'm a strength
• 1:16:25
  coach, I would hope that That I'm going to be as dedicated to
• 1:16:29
  helping that coach as possible. Or you know, what is my role be
• 1:16:34
  respectful of that? Because it is difficult, you
• 1:16:36
  know, when you have, you know, you have some athletes, you
• 1:16:39
  know, you think back to the old Bo Jackson analogy, you know
• 1:16:41
  that he allegedly hardly ever lifted weights but he was super
• 1:16:44
  strong. You know, you're going to have
• 1:16:47
  those athletes, you know. So at the end of the day what is
• 1:16:49
  it that you're trying to do? If you're trying to get the
• 1:16:51
  athlete to pull volt higher or the Sprint faster?
• 1:16:55
  You know, what is your role to get?
• 1:16:57
  An athlete to that destination. Maybe your role is to back off,
• 1:17:02
  you know? And to guide them, you know,
• 1:17:04
  more of a management style. Then there are other athletes
• 1:17:06
  that, you know, they're not very talented and they really need to
• 1:17:11
  be developed from the ground up and, you know, so working in
• 1:17:13
  cohesion, but understanding that strengthen conditioning coach, I
• 1:17:17
  would hope would take a it's, it's my job as a strength coach
• 1:17:20
  to help enhance the track and field coach and then through
• 1:17:24
  that dialogue, you work together.
• 1:17:27
  You know to understand that and it's it's not always easy, you
• 1:17:30
  know, I mean I've seen plenty of times where, you know, the
• 1:17:32
  strength coach wants to do one thing and you know you got a
• 1:17:35
  really talented high jumper, you know.
• 1:17:37
  And they're not going to fare well with heavy quarter squats
• 1:17:40
  or what have you. But I think if you have a good
• 1:17:43
  Dynamic and you have that good relationship and each coach is
• 1:17:46
  willing to some degree to maybe check their ego down or portray
• 1:17:50
  a picture of. This is what we want to do.
• 1:17:53
  Please avoid these things, but be respectful of one another
• 1:17:57
  Approaches or philosophies. I think.
• 1:17:59
  Hopefully that helps. Yeah.
• 1:18:02
  That's kind of what we've tried to do in different times.
• 1:18:05
  Yeah, I hear the word communication like, yeah, I have
• 1:18:08
  an, a communication. Would that coach?
• 1:18:10
  And yeah, that's great. Thank you for that again.
• 1:18:12
  I know I put you on the spot, all that will do just as your
• 1:18:14
  time watching, condition is like, oh, that's a topic that
• 1:18:16
  comes up a lot. Okay.
• 1:18:18
  All right. Steve.
• 1:18:18
  We're on our anchor leg here. Wrap us up here.
• 1:18:20
  Something that is super cool that Emporia State has done and
• 1:18:25
  will do here in the future is You're hosting NCAA
• 1:18:28
  championships, man. That's a, that's a big deal.
• 1:18:31
  First of all that says yeah. Hey, ton about your facility.
• 1:18:33
  I mean, there ain't not every facility has what you need to
• 1:18:38
  host, an incidental, a championship.
• 1:18:39
  So says a lot about your facilities says a lot about your
• 1:18:43
  structure, again, you can have a facility but if you don't have
• 1:18:46
  the people inside your athletic department in the city, it's a
• 1:18:50
  big task to what you're doing. Tell us a little bit about
• 1:18:53
  hosting, ncaa's coming up here in the next couple years and How
• 1:18:57
  excited, how nervous you are and what goes into that a little bit
• 1:19:01
  here, all the above, you know, you know, like I said, you know,
• 1:19:05
  we've really fallen in love with this, this town the community
• 1:19:08
  and I know the community is exciting, you know, and I think
• 1:19:11
  that, you know, had the opportunity to work on the sport
• 1:19:13
  committee a number of years ago and you really just kind of get
• 1:19:17
  an Insider's look at hosting. But also at the unique
• 1:19:21
  perspective of Hosting from a division to track and field
• 1:19:24
  coaching standpoint, you know. So is it going to be a
• 1:19:26
  Destination. I don't know too many people
• 1:19:29
  that are going to want to vacation in Emporia Kansas,
• 1:19:31
  although it is a nice town, you know.
• 1:19:34
  But I think what we're going with the philosophy won't try to
• 1:19:36
  take is make it a good Championship, you know, make it,
• 1:19:39
  you know what makes a great Championship is, you know,
• 1:19:41
  really how the athletes perform, hopefully, you know, and they're
• 1:19:44
  going to walk away feeling great about what they did.
• 1:19:47
  So we really, that's kind of our ground driving.
• 1:19:50
  Philosophy is, how do you know the town is very accessible?
• 1:19:53
  There's not going to be a lot of traffic.
• 1:19:55
  Lots of things are going to be with.
• 1:19:56
  In walking distance, you know, so we can really cater to a
• 1:19:59
  relaxed Hometown feel. So I think the community is
• 1:20:03
  definitely on board with that. You know, from a facility
• 1:20:07
  standpoint, we're getting some upgrades which is going to be
• 1:20:10
  great at our throws area. The tracks going to get, you
• 1:20:13
  know, a facelift as well as well as a few other things, you know.
• 1:20:17
  So selfishly we're excited about that you know that's always a
• 1:20:21
  plus. Yeah that but yeah you know an
• 1:20:24
  administrative Lee you know at the University there They're
• 1:20:26
  excited, you know, this is this is what we need.
• 1:20:29
  You know, this is a big balance between economics, as well as
• 1:20:33
  Athletics and how the, to mesh together.
• 1:20:37
  It's a reality whether, you know, people like it or not.
• 1:20:40
  And so, you know, we look at it as an honor to host and that was
• 1:20:44
  that was my perspective was, this is a privilege it.
• 1:20:48
  We're going to make the most of the privilege and make sure that
• 1:20:50
  we host well and people think, hey, this tiny little town is
• 1:20:54
  might be one of the best kept secrets are out Hopefully it
• 1:20:57
  goes, goes great and it's outdoors and 24 and 26.
• 1:21:02
  Say okay, I thought there was a, I wanted to say goodbye but I
• 1:21:05
  was like I was pretty sure there was a year Gap in there.
• 1:21:08
  Oh that's so awesome. And I'm excited for you guys to
• 1:21:10
  goes as the incidentally equipment provider, you know
• 1:21:13
  we've gone to the Grand Valley pit stay.
• 1:21:18
  You know of course organ and will be in Austin this year for
• 1:21:20
  division 1 and Rochester for division, 3 Virginia Beach for
• 1:21:24
  division to indoors. Been out to that place yet where
• 1:21:28
  the don't have it haven't been there.
• 1:21:30
  Just Nene lots of pictures gorgeous.
• 1:21:32
  Yeah it's gorgeous and will be in Pueblo for outdoors this
• 1:21:35
  year. So super excited to see you know
• 1:21:39
  every place has a little bit different flavor if you will.
• 1:21:42
  No one has I mean we've done this now for I don't know how
• 1:21:45
  many years and includes some USA championships that I've been a
• 1:21:49
  part of as well. I've been to every place around
• 1:21:51
  here. No one's ever been bad.
• 1:21:53
  I mean, whatever you think is a bad place is not it.
• 1:21:56
  They all have their own unique flavor and experiences.
• 1:21:59
  And so I'm excited for when I saw the list came out, I was
• 1:22:01
  like, oh, man, important, that's great.
• 1:22:03
  I'll be able to find a ga to come work at Gil from.
• 1:22:05
  That's that was my first thought is, I got you got a good eye for
• 1:22:07
  sniping from the ga program. Absolutely man.
• 1:22:10
  Well, we're excited for you guys.
• 1:22:12
  You know, we still have another year, but I love that.
• 1:22:14
  You know, I've been talking to some of our teammates who's in
• 1:22:17
  charge of the facility of the championships as relates to our
• 1:22:21
  side of it. I love one of facility is
• 1:22:23
  working a year and two years earlier Yes, sometimes it's the
• 1:22:27
  year of its so-called manager. You're a little behind.
• 1:22:30
  We feel like we're behind right now, but I'm sure she's coming
• 1:22:32
  together. But you guys are doing an
• 1:22:34
  excellent job and, you know, for any division, two, coaches,
• 1:22:36
  listening, you're going to have an amazing experience out in
• 1:22:40
  Emporia. We got to get through this year
• 1:22:41
  first because you're also going to a great experience in
• 1:22:43
  Virginia Beach and Pueblo, which I personally did those site
• 1:22:46
  visits, and they're going to be, they're going to be awesome,
• 1:22:48
  it's going to be a great competition and I'm always
• 1:22:51
  amazed, you know, you becomes this like comparison of
• 1:22:54
  division, 1 and division to division three.
• 1:22:56
  It's such a But man, division, two coaches.
• 1:22:58
  Y'all can coach your butts off, man?
• 1:23:01
  I was watching that me last year, Grand Valley.
• 1:23:03
  And I'm just like, holy, like, I'm so glad I got out of
• 1:23:05
  coaching, could not coach of the level that you guys do.
• 1:23:09
  I was I'd be embarrassed. I'd be out of this thing if I
• 1:23:12
  was still in it. So super proud of what you guys
• 1:23:14
  do and super proud of what you do there and in Emporia Steve.
• 1:23:17
  You know, it's interesting to see how important has continued
• 1:23:22
  to evolve and continue to improve.
• 1:23:24
  And I think what you do there with your staff is Excellent
• 1:23:27
  work. And honestly at the end of the
• 1:23:28
  day you're affecting young people in many, many positive
• 1:23:32
  ways and that at the end of the day is what you hang your hat
• 1:23:35
  on. Because 99.9% these kids aren't
• 1:23:37
  going pro are not very many pro spots, spur spots out there so
• 1:23:40
  the kids that you are impacting are going to become moms and
• 1:23:43
  dads and bankers and business owners and you know, store
• 1:23:47
  clerks etcetera. I mean they're just going to go
• 1:23:49
  on to do amazing things and teachers and they're going to
• 1:23:52
  have great experiences and great reach into society because of Of
• 1:23:56
  what you and your staff do. So man, just so so excited for
• 1:23:59
  what you guys are doing in the rest of this year for you.
• 1:24:01
  I appreciate it. Thanks a lot.
• 1:24:03
  Thanks for your help. Always, man, we love you guys.
• 1:24:06
  We love the Hornets, man. So thanks for being here today,
• 1:24:08
  man. Again, I know you're super busy.
• 1:24:10
  You got to run the new year, when you're listening.
• 1:24:13
  You got to run. We're going to do it again.
• 1:24:14
  It's March 13. So, it's actually this right
• 1:24:17
  after Nationals, I can big of mix up my Dancer Trail.
• 1:24:20
  Yeah. So you already know how the
• 1:24:22
  vision to at Virginia Beach. Went as you're listening to
• 1:24:24
  this, I'm going to go. I'm going.
• 1:24:26
  That fortune teller. He can't.
• 1:24:27
  He's a coach you can't afford to tell but I can because it's my
• 1:24:30
  show is has been an amazing championships.
• 1:24:33
  I just know it because the vision to rocks division.
• 1:24:36
  One is an Albuquerque. I bet that was awesome division.
• 1:24:39
  3 is in Cross Plex my home track because I'm from Alabama.
• 1:24:42
  So I miss it. I'm going to go to Virginia
• 1:24:44
  Beach instead though. So we're excited as the
• 1:24:46
  equipment provider for all the NCAA championships.
• 1:24:49
  And again, Stephen thank you for your time today, man.
• 1:24:52
  Just so grateful for you man. Really thank you, I appreciate
• 1:24:55
  it. Thanks for, thanks for being
• 1:24:56
  here. Join us next week.
• 1:24:57
  We'll do it all over again. Thanks.